I look at this the other way around. When I first upgraded to 365 or V12, it was because of the features that were offered at that time. I had V11 and V12 had improvements (ok, everything is relative - I wanted the Magix Video Pro X/Movie Edit Pro - Xara interface fixed and it was) that I was looking for, so I bought it. It was nice to also receive improvements as they came along, knowing full well that I hadn't paid for them yet and that if I wanted to keep them permanently, I would eventually have to pay. I looked at the option of paying before vs paying after the renewal date and decided that the interim updates were more or less sufficient to merit renewal. Having a web domain from Xara included also helped make this decision. This is the same process as happened before - if you like the improvements, upgrade, if not, wait a year. And, I will go through the same process in a year.

For those who did not jump into V12 and are still at V11, please don't complain that the features that came out in the last year are not worth upgrading to the current version without also looking at the initial new features between V11 and V12 when V12 first came out. You are now 2 years or 2 versions later, not one, and future unknown upgrades don't count. The decision to upgrade or renew should always be based on the current status, not what might come out in the future.

Maybe Magix/Xara should have simply said that you are getting the current version (and all updates/upgrades) to the date of payment, and we are giving you a free trial of future upgrades over the next year, yours to keep if you don't have to reinstall, yours to keep permanently if you upgrade (renew) in a year. After all, no one seems to complain when a trial version runs out.

Finally, I have to agree that the renewal/upgrade price is steep. This is annoying with all software as it seems that the renewal is never worth the price of the new features. And worst of all, new users can jump in by paying marginally more than the upgrade price. Definitely not fair.........oops, that's how they got me.

John